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More "Ticklish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... looking to the right or left. He had said just enough, and he reached the door amid a chorus of "'Ear, 'ear!" "Bravo!" "True for you, docther!" and so on. But when he got fairly outside, he breathed more freely. He had performed a ticklish task, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... fellows down there. Remember at General Election one took me neat. After I had made speech to crowded meeting, lot of questions put. Answered them all satisfactorily. At last one fellow got up, asked me, in voice of thunder, 'Are you, in favour of temperance?' Rather ticklish thing that, you know. As many against it as for it. Looked all round the room; seemed remarkably decent lot; the man who was heckling me a little rubicund as to the nose; but that might be indigestion. Anyhow, felt unless ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various
... to see with what discretion we approached and circled round it, searching for the most favorable point of attack. So much of an iceberg is beneath the surface of the water, ballasting the whole, that it is rather ticklish business cruising in its vicinity. We lay off and on, coquetting with the little beauty, while one of our boats pulled up to it, and threw a lariat over a glittering peak that flamed in the sun like a torch. Then ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... had to be done slowly and deliberately so as not to startle the flock, but, as Rifle said, it was ticklish work. ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... for six weeks, come Tuesday, and she ain't half done yet," they explained to visitors. They fell out of the way of always expecting her to be the one to run on errands, even for the children. "Don't bother your Aunt Mehetabel," Sophia would call. "Can't you see she's got to a ticklish place on the quilt?" ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... thanked God, then, that you were not there. The second mate wanted some one to go down with him to bring up the gunpowder, and throw it overboard. I had nothing to do, and I went. We wrapped it up in wet sails, but it was a ticklish piece of work, and took time. When we had got it overboard, the flames were gathering far and wide. I don't remember what I did until I heard ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... and even if I had felt disposed, Walters would have taken care that I was not trusted. He would have been too jealous. Feeling rested, I now began to creep up step by step so as to reach the mizzen-top, where I hoped I could remain unseen. It was ticklish work, for the men on guard by the sky-light were a very little distance away; but moving by slow degrees I climbed up at last, and lay down in comparative safety, not having ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... eating and drinking with Pao-ch'ai, Hsiang-yuen and the other girls, P'ing Erh turned her head round. "Don't rub me like that!" she laughed, "It makes me feel quite ticklish." ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... into my bunk and Bill got into 'is, and we lay there listening while the cook, who was a terrible ticklish man, leaned out of 'is bunk and said wot 'e'd do ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... the charming father-in-law and the indulgent grandpapa, the Baron took his son into the garden, and laid before him a variety of observations full of good sense as to the attitude to be taken up by the Chamber on a certain ticklish question which had that morning come under discussion. The young lawyer was struck with admiration for the depth of his father's insight, touched by his cordiality, and especially by the ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... are you going to do about it? If you can't go, you can't. And you know it's absolutely out of the question." As a fact he was glad that her condition made such an excursion impossible for her. She would certainly have been rather a ticklish handful for ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... beard, I am sure I should make one of his Midland speeches to admiration.... I really find nothing new to say. Of course, there is the old story of Afghanistan, but the latter is already discounted, and it is rather a ticklish question. I never felt it so difficult to mix a prescription good for the present feeling of the constituencies.... Depend upon it, if we are to win (as we shall), it will not be on some startling cry, but by the turning over to us of that floating ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... man drank without the least reluctance, and said, 'Yes, miller, I am called out. 'Tis ticklish times for us soldiers now; we hold our lives in our hands—What are those fellows grinning at behind ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... goddess! From thine airy bound Drop like a feather softly to the ground; This light bolero grows a ticklish dance, And there is mischief in thy kindling glance. To-morrow bids thee, with rebuking frown, Change thy gauze tunic for a home-made gown, Too blest by fortune if the passing day Adorn thy bosom with its frail bouquet, But oh, still happier if the next forgets Thy daring ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... a mother that will hazard the happiness of her children by a second marriage. The law allows it, to be sure; but there is, as Prior says, 'something beyond the letter of the law.' I know what ticklish ground I am treading on here; but, though it is as lawful for a woman to take a second husband as for a man to take a second wife, the cases are different, and widely different, in the eye of morality and of reason; for, as adultery in the wife is a greater ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... Judges, Nae drooning a' your grudges In deep, deep draughts o' claret, and a' your senses tae, Nae chatter wise or witty On ticklish points o' dittay,— The days o' my Circuits are a' ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... a bit ticklish, yet required doing. A trip to the foremast put in my possession quite a section of line sliced from off the rope's end previously left dangling from the upper yard. Incidentally as I passed back and forth I revisited Father Cassati, still resting easily in his bonds, but now peacefully ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... the thing's ticklish. There are rumours about all ready. The Grand Mufti* came to me before breakfast with a wild tale. I've promised him some Sikhs for special sentry duty. He'd hardly gone before some Zionists came with a story that the Arabs are planning to blow up their hospital; I gave them ten men ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... above the neighbouring banks. The rapid extends diagonally across the river in a low cascade, with a curve inward towards the left shore. It was decided to unload and make the portage, and a very ticklish one it was. The boats, of course, had to be hauled up stream by the trackers, and grasping their line I got safely over, and was thankful. How the trackers managed to hold on was to me a mystery; but the steep and slippery bank was mere child's play to them. The right ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... that, Mr. Thorn," said Fleda, as the gentleman was making rather ticklish efforts to reach a superb Fuchsia that hung high,—"You are endangering sundry ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... man will be prying, of his own accord, into things of such ticklish and troublesome, not to say perilous nature—I've nothing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 22, 1893 • Various
... out now," said Casey, "is how to get up there an' AT 'am. An' how we kin do it without him seein' us. Goin' t' be kinda ticklish—but it ain't the first ticklish job ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... ticklish job, no fooling—even for an expert," the mathematician agreed. "No wonder the astronomers think you birds are the ones who are gumming up their dope. Well, it's about time to plug in on E2. Here's where the fireworks start!" He closed the connections which transferred ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... It was ticklish work, as the dusk deepened, getting from one wreck to another; and at last—after nearly going down into the weed between two of them, because of a rotten belaying-pin that I caught at breaking in my hand—I had to resign myself to giving ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... fine," replied Mr. Kerrigan, pretending a dullness which he did not feel; "but it's damned ticklish business at best. I don't know that I want anything to do with it even if we could win. It's true the City Hall crowd have never played into my hands very much; but this is a Democratic district, and I'm a Democrat. If it ever got out that I had thrown the party it would be ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... bed as cautiously as he could, and made his way to the door. It was a ticklish task, in the dark, to accomplish without noise, but he succeeded in doing it. Outside it was very dark, with a velvety sort of blackness. The boy was glad of this, for it afforded him protection from the men he felt sure were reconnoitering ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... "She is pretty ticklish," Charley admitted, "but just the craft for our purpose. She's so light she will float on a good heavy dew, and then she's so easy to take to pieces and pack away. But we'd better stop our chattering, for we are getting near the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... his offer writ down in black and white and will have it before you'll move a peg. I'll write it and have it ready for him to sign. If he does, we are solid; if not, we are lost. I don't know that I ever tackled anything quite as ticklish as this, for he is as wary and sly as a fox. We mustn't give 'im time to think, if we can help it. Sh! there he is now. Don't mind anything I say, no matter how harsh it sounds—remember, I'm working for your good, and using fire ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... "I'm having a doubtful moment right now; not one, but dozens! I'm on the most ticklish errand of my life. That's what I called on Judge Trent about the ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... philosophical, only a little madder. After all, Love's sectaries are a reason unto themselves. We have gone retrograde to the noble heresy, since the days when Sidney proselyted our nation to this mixed health and disease: the kindliest symptom, yet the most alarming crisis, in the ticklish state of youth; the nourisher and the destroyer of hopeful wits; the mother of twin births, wisdom and folly, valor and weakness; the servitude above freedom; the gentle ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... was my reply. "There are two chaps, though, who are in a devil of a ticklish position. Since you 're here now, it will probably be you who will conduct the inquest, and I 'm a little curious to see ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... to know all that is known about their diseases and their treatment,—skilful enough to be trusted with the manipulation of that delicate and most precious organ. I want an aurist who knows all about the ear and what can be done for its disorders. The maladies of the larynx are very ticklish things to handle, and nobody should be trusted to go behind the epiglottis who has not the tactus eruditus. And so of certain other particular classes of complaints. A great city must have a limited ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Comas common stock; he had depended on the situation at Skulltree as his principal weapon, if bravado backed the special legislative act. But that act had been juggled, just as Echford Flagg had asserted. The thing was ticklish, and Craig knew it. Anger and apprehensiveness were working twin leverage ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out At every joint and motive of her body. O, these encounterers, so glib of tongue, That give accosting welcome ere it comes, And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts To every ticklish reader! set them down For sluttish spoils of opportunity ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... five every morning, and seemed ubiquitous; added a gray gelding to his black mare, and rode them both nearly off their legs. He surveyed land in half a dozen counties—he speculated in grain in half a dozen markets, and did business in shares. His plan in dealing with this ticklish speculation was simple. He listened to nothing anybody said, examined the venture himself, and, if it had a sound basis, bought when the herd was selling, and sold wherever the herd was buying. Hence, he ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... draw near, thought it necessary to act a last lie in accordance with human prejudices, and he resolved to be reconciled, in appearance, to a Church whose truth, once acknowledged by him, convicted him of sacrilege and of dishonour. This ticklish job could best be performed, not by a staid priest of the old Gallican school, who might have insisted upon a categorical retractation of errors, upon his making amends and upon his doing penance; not by a young Ultramontane of the ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... to me, but it was encouraging that he seemed pleased; and when he had adjusted the friction roller against a fly-wheel, or something queer and ticklish of that sort, we flew away from Erba at a splendid pace, as if the car had decided ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... hundred, and was in other respects unprepared and utterly inadequate to cope with a first-class power. In consequence of this, and the criticisms of our Navy Department, which Admiral Sims as a young man had written, Roosevelt took the steps he did in his first term. Three ticklish times in that Spanish War England stood our friend against Germany. When it broke out, German agents approached Mr. Balfour, proposing that England join in a European combination in Spain's favor. Mr. Balfour's refusal is common knowledge, ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... company aboue fourescore thousand pounds, before it could be brought to any profitable reckoning. And now that after so long a patience and so great a burthen of expences, the same began to frame to some good course and commoditie: It falleth to very ticklish termes, and to as slender likelihood of any further goodnesse, as any other ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... mind about the hampers," said Cheesacre. "Wine is a ticklish thing to handle, and there's my ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... miles before night overtook them, or met them, which you please. The reader must excuse me if I am not particular as to the way they took; for, as we are now drawing near the seat of the Boobies, and as that is a ticklish name, which malicious persons may apply, according to their evil inclinations, to several worthy country squires, a race of men whom we look upon as entirely inoffensive, and for whom we have an adequate regard, we shall lend no assistance to any ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... I awaited the answer to this question, not without a certain degree of nervous anxiety. I was beginning to comprehend the counsel of my Nashville friend on the ticklish ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... knock him on the head, and called to Friday to stand still, and we would shoot the bear; but he cried out earnestly, "O pray! O pray! no shoot, me shoot by and then;" he would have said by and by. However, to shorten the story, Friday danced so much, and the bear stood so ticklish, that we had laughing enough indeed, but still could not imagine what the fellow would do; for first we thought he depended upon shaking the bear off; and we found the bear was too cunning for that too; for he would not get out far enough to be thrown ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... expressed great confidence in the future exertion of that talent which had been blessed with such a prosperous beginning. Our hero finding him thus obstinately deaf to the voice of his own interest, resolved to govern himself in his next endeavours of friendship, by his experience of this ticklish punctilio; and, in the meantime, gave a handsome benefaction to the hospital, out of these first fruits of the success in play, and reserved two hundred pounds for a set of diamond ear-rings and solitaire, which he intended for a present to ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... comfortable. The ladies laid their shawls and their caps on the bed and pinned up their skirts so as not to soil them. Boche sent his wife back to the concierge's lodge until time to eat and had cornered Clemence in a corner trying to find out if she was ticklish. She was gasping for breath, as the mere thought of being tickled sent shivers through her. So as not to bother the cooks, the other ladies had gone into the shop and were standing against the wall facing the table. They were talking through the door though, and as they could ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... had run it. Head-hunters were mere daily episodes in Grits's existence, but water... He muttered something in cockney that sounded like a prayer.... The wind was rapidly driving us toward the middle of the pond, and something cold and ticklish was seeping through the seats of our trousers. We ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... shortly before midnight, Holmes left me. "I've got to finish this job," said he. "The most ticklish part of the business is yet ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... Margery began to tremble for the consequences. She had held several short conferences with le Bourdon, as they walked together, and had penetrated far enough into his purposes to see that he was playing a ticklish game. It might succeed for a time, but she feared it must fail in the end; and there was always the risk of incurring the summary vengeance of savages. Perhaps she did not fully appreciate the power of superstition, and the sluggishness ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... "A ticklish thing to do, by Jove, to take the matter in your own hands in that fashion. But all's well that ends well, and devilish glad will our fellows be to learn that you will be so soon among us again, especially as your troop and mine have been ordered ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... current of old Missouri, thrusting against so large an object, was incredibly strong; but at last, little by little edging the heavy staging up over the limb of the snag, we got its end upon another fork and so made a ticklish support, half in and half out ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... Malcolm. He knew, from sundry remarks he had heard about the stables, that the mare in question was a ticklish one to ride, but would rather have his ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... misunderstood her, and said, 'You don't like the idea of a merchant-brother; but you'll have to get used to it. I don't mean to let him go back to college. He knows a lot of useful stuff, and these are ticklish times.' ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... a ticklish moment, young un, I can tell ye, for we knew that it were scarce possible to get off without the alarm being raised. Ef the wigwam had stood close to the edge of the forest it would have been compar'tively easy, for once among the trees we ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... Mac!" ejaculated Hardwick. "I shouldn't feel the anxiety I do if we hadn't been having trouble with those mountain people up toward Flat Rock over that girl that died at the hospital." He laughed a little ruefully. "Trying to do things for folks is ticklish business. There wasn't a man in the crowd that interviewed me whom I could convince that our hospital wasn't a factory for the making of stiffs which we sold to the Northern Medical ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... said Lenehan again, "are you sure you can bring it off all right? You know it's a ticklish job. They're damn close on ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... later volumes the translator prefaces a statement which contains some significant intelligence concerning his aim and his interpretation of Sterne's underlying purpose. He says he would never have ventured on the translation of so ticklish a book if he had foreseen the difficulties; that he believed such a translation would be a real service to the German public, and that he never fancied the critics could hold him to the very letter, as in the rendering of a classic author. He confesses ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... they had gone back to the library for their coffee, "I am afraid this Commission is going to be ticklish business." ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... topic, however, that they introduced could outlive the second or third phrase. The king was in one of his gloomy moods; for royalty, with reverence be it spoken, has its moments of merriment and ill-humour, its mixture of sunshine and of cloud; and be it known to thee, gentle reader, that ticklish is the position of a courtier when majesty is in the dumps. To mend, or rather to mar the matter, the grand chamberlain, imagining that the sadness which overshadowed the royal brow came from regret, fixed ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... vacillations of Austria were notorious; and Pitt was said to be about to send Eden to Paris to sue for peace. As for Spain, she was hard pressed; French and American emissaries had stirred up strife in her colonies; and affairs were most "ticklish" in San Domingo. His Government had therefore sought for a composition (not a definite peace) with France. In fact, the war as a whole had failed, for whereas the Allies had set themselves to crush French ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... said, and I understood; a situation not exactly uncommon, but ticklish on a planet like Darkover. I said carelessly, "I may have seen you around the HQ. I can't ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... rather a ticklish affair. I thought my man was going to choke to death, he got so ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... start, he touched the point of flame to the piled jute and paper in front of him. It caught in an instant. Still holding the lighted match, he repeated this ticklish process time after time, tossing handfuls of the blazing stuff down onto ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... most ticklish undertaking, and but for his diplomacy, he believed one foredoomed to failure. But of course Lorraine was a woman of the world, with a larger mixture of the other kind of womanliness, perhaps, than was usual, and he in his perspicacity had ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... sarcasm that I could command at the instant, I inquired: "And you, Mr. Poopendyke,—are you not ticklish?" ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... wait, I'll get square, see if I don't," howled Nat, as he arose. Then he commenced to twist his neck, to free himself from the ticklish straw and shavings. ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... know, and tears almost standin' in my eyes, I told him the feelin's I felt for the Powers, how mad I'd been at 'em in the past, and how them feelin's had turned into pity, for I knowed just what a ticklish place they wuz in and how necessary it wuz for 'em to keep a cool head and a wise, religious heart, and then, sez I, "I d'no as that will save you. You Powers have got so hard a job to tackle that it don't seem to me you'll ever git out of it with hull skins if you don't use all the caution ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... separation; she kept her title of Queen and her position as lawful wife. The rest, it appears, was of no great interest to her. It only remained to conclude the marriage, but, under the circumstances, that was a delicate and ticklish business. ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... pauperism. And then there is the accident, the thing happening, the death or disablement of the husband, father, and bread-winner. Here is a man, with a wife and three children, living on the ticklish security of twenty shillings per week—and there are hundreds of thousands of such families in London. Perforce, to even half exist, they must live up to the last penny of it, so that a week's wages (one pound) ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... time way was made at the ticklish rope bridge for a file of sixteen coffins, each borne by two of the Sergeant's unwilling conscripts, while the Sergeant closed up ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... change is a very ticklish business," said Aumerle, studying the menu, and regretting that his digestion was not ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... yet remember that a promise and a fancy are two different things. We may do what's right for the fear o' God, and not love Him either. Marmion, let the marriage bells be rung early—a maiden's heart is a ticklish thing. . ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... had just been carefully and systematically robbed—burst into laughter. But this was the end. There was Allister's whistle; Jeff Rankin ran around from the other side of the train; the gang faded instantly into the thicket. Andrew, as the rear guard—his most ticklish moment—backed slowly toward the trees. Once there was a waver in the line, such as precedes a rush. He stopped short, and a single twitch of his rifle froze the ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... regards my physique I should mention that all my reflexes are very brisk, though I am only slightly ticklish in the ordinary sense of the term. I sweat easily and am very shy, not only with women, but with any strangers. I have, however, trained myself not to show this. About averagely passionate, I should say, and extremely critical where women are concerned, the latter quality often ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... wife. Kin', kind. King's-hood, the 2d stomach in a ruminant (equivocal for the scrotum). Kintra, country. Kirk, church. Kirn, a churn. Kirn, harvest home. Kirsen, to christen. Kist, chest, counter. Kitchen, to relish. Kittle, difficult, ticklish, delicate, fickle. Kittle, to tickle. Kittlin, kitten. Kiutlin, cuddling. Knaggie, knobby. Knappin-hammers, hammers for breaking stones. Knowe, knoll. Knurl, knurlin, dwarf. Kye, cows. Kytes, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... of it before you're entirely finished!" he responded. "When the case comes on in London. That's the ticklish part of the business. We'll meet there again, I expect, as Mr. Lake and I will be bound to give our evidence—which is a thankless task at the best of times.... Hello! Dollops, got the golf-clubs and walking-sticks? That's a good lad. Now we'll be off to old ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... at all relish the idea of taking his own drugs, but he was careful not to betray his dislike, for he was in a decidedly ticklish position. ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... Majesty sorry extremely for the Crown-Prince's situation; ready to do anything in reason to alleviate it. Better wait, however: Prussian Majesty will surely perhaps relent a little: then also the affairs of Europe are in a ticklish state. Better wait. As to that of taking temporary refuge in France, Britannic Majesty thinks that will require a mature deliberation (MURE DELIBERATION). Not even time now for inquiry of the French Court how they would take it; which his Britannic Majesty thinks ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... "Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored, Shall the Formidable here, with her twelve and eighty guns, Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way, Trust to enter where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons. And with flow at full beside? Now 'tis slackest ebb of tide. Reach the mooring! Rather say, While rock stands or water runs, Not a ship will leave ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... talk any more about them," said the young engineer, laughing, as he took off his wideawake and ran his fingers through his curly brown hair. "I declare my scalp feels quite ticklish already." ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... in houses of ill-fame, or with street solitaries, is fulfilled far more frequently than it is usually thought. When not green youths only, but even honourable men of fifty, almost grandfathers, are interrogated about this ticklish matter, they will tell you, sure enough, the ancient stencilled lie of how they had been seduced by a chambermaid or a governess. But this is one of those lingering, queer lies, going back into ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... understand that the Wil'sbro' folks are in a ticklish state," said Mr. Bowater; "they are sulking already, because they say the ladies have been stirring him up to put them ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... game at which none but gamesters might successfully play, a devouring flame singeing the wings of all who failed to distinguish between the light of a common candle and that of a real sun, that it was a nightmare to most, and ticklish business for all. Unable to distinguish between the good and the bad intentions of those who advocated the passage of bills, convinced long before the end of the legislative session that a bill looking innocent and direct in its wording might be evil and indirect in its outworking, Nathan ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... that young savage into the water was a difficult and ticklish job; but they finally succeeded, after Donald had first removed the gag from his mouth. He took the Indian's knife, and, as the latter slid into the water, Bullen held him by the scalp-lock, while Donald ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... the chairwoman of the Committee. All committee members know that the chairman or woman is a ticklish problem, ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... much astonished at finding the fiddler in bed beside them, and overwhelmed him with questions; but their friend hid his back and face, and answered them very shortly, saying, 'Go there yourselves, and see what's to be seen! It is a ticklish matter, that I ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... ships were improperly built—some were ten times longer than their beam. There was nothing in the world so ticklish as a ship; touch her in the waist, and down she goes. He believed sailing ships ought not to exceed four times their beam, and steamers certainly not more than six times. He pointed out that a fruitful cause of accidents was the stopping of steaming all at once ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885 • Various
... an air of distrust to his manner. "But the eye that has often seen battles seldom winks. Mine has too often, and too steadily, looked danger in the face to be alarmed at the sight of a King's pennant. Besides it is not usual for us to be much on this ticklish coast; the islands, and the Spanish Main, are less ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... felt that he was in a ticklish position. Had he a right to examine the contents of this strong box? If discovered by any one, what would be the outcome? Even the fact that he was in a way connected with the law ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... the lads realized that it was a ticklish moment. Even Myra, if startled, might give the scream that ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... owing to the state of the river, we came in just at the right time. The Rusniacks—the people generally employed in this perilous work—certainly display great skill and coolness in the management of their ticklish craft. If by any mischance the timbers come in contact with the rocks, then the danger is extreme; and hardly a year passes that some of the poor fellows do not get carried away in the swirling waters, which have made for themselves deep and treacherous ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... now executing under trying circumstances, and all of them knew their duty. If any one trembled as the mast swayed over when the ship rolled, he was afraid to mention the fact, or to exhibit any signs of alarm. Perhaps most of them would have been willing to acknowledge that it was rather "ticklish" business to lay out on a topsail yard at midnight in a gale of wind; and if their anxious mothers could have seen the boys at that moment, some of them might have fainted, and all wished them in ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... I now saw was an enormous panther, I waited until I could place a shot where I felt it would do the most good, for at best a frontal shot at any of the large carnivora is a ticklish matter. I had some advantage in that the beast was not charging; its head was held low and its back exposed; and so at forty yards I took careful aim at its spine at the junction of neck and shoulders. But at the same instant, as though sensing my intention, ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... troops to a great extent went into action with little training, but they learned quickly in the hard school of experience. They excelled in grenade throwing and machine gun work. Grenade throwing is very ticklish business. Releasing the pin lights the fuse. Five seconds after the fuse is lighted the grenade explodes. It must be timed exactly. If thrown too quickly the enemy is liable to pick it up and hurl it back in time to create the explosion in one's ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... Whenever was this ticklish business of the dovetailing of two lives accomplished without some small mutual effort? No more could be said than that Carlisle felt, in rare and weak moments, a certain sense of strain. An immaterial subtlety this, properly out of the range of mamma's ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... which I assure you is pretty strongly so." Here was the chief British supply depot and Nairne had just been sent thither to aid in repelling a menace from the American fleet. He had brought his force from Ten Mile Creek, in boats, on the open lake, and the journey, lasting all day, was ticklish enough. All the time the American fleet was in pursuit and it reached the narrow gateway to Burlington Bay only an hour and a half after Captain Nairne entered. The enemy intended to storm the heights, and landed 800 men for that purpose; but finding the position ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... him a letter of thanks, as of a thing given him for nothing, upon recommendations, etc. Disney tells me he will again speak to Fielding, and clear up this matter; then I will write to Bernage. A pox on him for promising money till I had it promised to me; and then making it such a ticklish point, that one cannot expostulate with the colonel upon it: but let him do as I say, and there is an end. I engaged the Secretary of State in it; and am sure it was meant a kindness to me, and that no money should be given, and a hundred pounds is too ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... he looked at her, calmed, he knew that he had done well for himself. He knew that if he had not yielded to that terrific impulse he would have done badly for himself. Mrs Machin had what she called a ticklish night of it. ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... inch the grumbling mass of irritable beasts was urged forward by the white drover and his boys. It was a ticklish job, and the whips were kept quiet at first, except to flick up one or another which tried to poke out of the mob. All went well till the leading cattle came to the wing of the yard. Those iron rails frightened them. They had only seen a yard once before in their ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... into the group of those who do not know they are divulging secrets, by the reporter deliberately leading away from the topic about which he has come for an interview, then circling round to the hazardous subject when the person interviewed is off his guard. Probably the most ticklish situation in all reporting is here. To make a person tell what he knows without knowing that he is telling is the pinnacle of the art of interviewing. As Mr. Richard Harding Davis has so exactly ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... bootiful wimin, and a heap of good clothes. There was a good deal of hair present that belonged on the heds of peple who didn't cum with it—but this is a ticklish subjeck for me. I larfed at my wife's waterfall, which indoosed that superior woman to take it off and heave it at me rather vilently; and as there was about a half bushil of it, it knockt me over, and give me pains in my body which I hain't ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... rumour of Forstner's imprisonment reached the Duchesse d'Orleans, who had believed her compatriot returned to Germany. Now it was a ticklish thing for the Duchess to undertake intervention on behalf of a Protestant, for though she had joined the Church of Rome on her marriage to 'Monsieur,' still it was whispered in Paris that she had reprehensible leanings to the faith ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... "In so ticklish a situation I see none but Trescorre to maintain the political balance. He has been adroit enough to make himself necessary to the Duchess without alienating the Duke; he has introduced one or two trifling reforms that have given ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... that it was nothing more than a shelf blasted from the sheer face of the cliff. Twice, meeting motor-lorries downward bound, we had to back along that narrow shelf, with our outer wheels on the brink of emptiness, until we came to a spot where there was room to pass. It was a ticklish business. ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... with its ability, be it repeated, since its ability is singularly hampered. For, apart from any ticklish temporal considerations, be it remembered, life is always claiming of this temperament's possessor that he ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... at present; at first he had only one, now, of course, he has a few more; when he has got enough he will hybridise. You don't know what that is. Cross-breed with it; use the blue with the old yellow daffodil as parents to new varieties. That's ticklish work; growers can't afford to do it till they have a fair number of the new sort; but, of course, they occasionally get something ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... make him so useful to me. He looks already so proud upon it! I shall have him [Who knows?] give himself airs—He had best consider, that the favour he has been long aiming at, may put him into a very dangerous, a very ticklish situation. He that can oblige, may disoblige—Happy for some people not to have it ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... nothing to do with him since. When the present Congress was in process of organization Borah announced that he would bolt the party caucus if Penrose were slated for the chairmanship of the Finance Committee to which he was entitled according to the rule of seniority. It was a ticklish situation. The Republicans had a bare majority in the Senate and if any of them deserted the organization it might mean Democratic control. The leaders were disturbed and tried to mollify the defiant Senator from Idaho ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... "It's a ticklish job," he whispered. "There's the tinklers, mind, that's campin' in the Dean. If they're still in their camp we can get by easy enough, but they're maybe wanderin' about the wud after rabbits.... Then we maun ford the water, for ye'll no' cross it lower down where it's deep.... ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... and the others leaped out and dived away. A seaman who gave himself the credit of having shot the native, swam off to the canoe, and found him lying dead at the bottom, with a straw hat on his head which he recognised to be his own. Whilst displaying this in triumph, he upset the ticklish vessel, and the body sunk; but the canoe was towed to the shore, and the master returned ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... coon-skin cap rammed down over his mouth, and by his two shirts turned up over his head. With a swing of his huge limbs that made the knitted panels shake and rattle, Burl had flung himself over the fence, and was now engaged in the ticklish task of extricating his little master from amongst the vines and briers, the latter being just sufficiently thick to spice the disaster. When he had succeeded in fishing him out, pulled down the shirts, and pushed up the cap, he began vigorously ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... brought Fatima to a standstill, for I was afraid to let her go even at a slow walk when mademoiselle had no arm to hold on by, and her head bobbing at every step of Fatima's into the ticklish part of my back. And by chance we had stopped where the Rue Bonhomme climbs down the bluff to the river, and our boats lay moored at its foot. Suddenly an answer to her question flashed into my head. It seemed to me a perfect solution of all difficulties, but in the nature of the case I could ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... Imogene? Would they sell him any? Would the other members of the family care to do anything which would infringe on Robert's prerogatives under the will? They were all rather unfriendly to Lester at present, and he realized that he was facing a ticklish situation. The solution was—to get rid of Jennie. If he did that he would not need to be begging for stock. If he didn't, he was flying in the face of his father's last will and testament. He turned the matter over in his mind slowly ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... nest. ("That's a nice little homely touch.") (g) Arrange eggs in the nest and (1) Pour over one cup White Sauce. ("Memo: See p. 266 for White Sauce.") (2) Sprinkle with buttered crumbs. ("Allow plenty of time for buttering those crumbs; that sounds rather ticklish work.") (3) Bake until crumbs are brown. (h) Garnish with a border of toast points and a ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... impassive, fleshy countenance. He has the very face for the driver in Sam Weller's anecdote, who upset the election party at the required point. Wonderful tales are current of his readiness and skill. One in particular, of how one of his horses fell at a ticklish passage of the road, and how Foss let slip the reins, and, driving over the fallen animal, arrived at the next stage with only three. This I relate as I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... power, and the ignorant man is but an infant, and to give him knowledge is like putting a loaded blunderbuss into the hands of a child. What can an ignorant man do with knowledge? He is as likely to use it wrong end uppermost as in any other manner. Learning is a ticklish thing; it was said by Festus to have maddened even the wise and experienced Paul and what may we not expect it to do with your downright ignoramus? ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... there were visible enough, but the impressions for which they stood had vanished in the handling which everything in the house had undergone. Regarding with great thankfulness the result of my own foresight, I made haste to leave the room. I then proceeded to take my first steps in the ticklish experiment by which I hoped to determine whether Uncle David had had any share in the fatal business which had rendered the two rooms I had just visited ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... Marsh, who was now more at her beck and call than ever, and told him she had a ticklish letter to write. "I can talk with the best," said she, "but the moment I sit down and take up a pen something cold runs up my shoulder, and then down my backbone, and I'm palsied; now you are always writing, ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... of the swashbucklers were almost funereal in their solemnity. Passepoil, relying upon his Norman cunning, took it upon himself to explain a ticklish situation. "It is lucky we are here to ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... fifth, than an Historic. I will not beleeve they have altered or changed any thing concerning the generalitie of matters, but rather to wrest and turne the judgement of the events many times against reason, to our advantage, and to omit whatsoever they supposed to be doubtful or ticklish in their masters life: they have made a business of it: witnesse the recoylings of the Lords of Momorancy and Byron, which therein are forgotten; and which is more, you shall not so much as find the name of the Ladie of Estampes mentioned at all. A man may sometimes colour and haply hide ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... I am by the side of a young or old woman now, I try to give our conversation a ticklish turn; I forget all reserve and I try to make her talk of those jokes which nettle, those words of double meaning which excite, and to lead her up to the only subject that interests and holds me, to find out what she feels in her body as well ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... time when I was under the snowdrift, only it wasn't so cold," Bunny said, telling about his accident afterward. "And it was awfully ticklish!" ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... with emotion while his breath came almost in sobs as his spirit responded to the music. Then came a canoe-trip on the river to which John Fiske joyfully assented though some of the rest of us were not without apprehension. Fiske in a canoe was a ticklish proposition, but there he was at last, comfortably recumbent, his head propped up on cushions, serenely at ease though a very narrow margin intervened between water-line and gunwale. The performer of the Sonata, ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... And as the fear of being measured still possessed me, 'Take care,' said I to him, 'what you are going to do with me; I am very ticklish, I warn you.' But he, with his soft voice (for he is a courteous fellow, we must admit, my friend), he with his soft voice, 'Monsieur,' said he, 'that your dress may fit you well, it must be made according to your figure. Your figure is exactly reflected in ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... skill in the use of the sword and with their fists, the boys had fought themselves out of many ticklish situations. And now, free again, they were making all speed to deliver the message from the combined leaders of two countries to Grand Duke Nicholas, a message that would mean closer cooperation between the Russians in the east and the British and ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... to "mop up" had the "time of their lives" and some ticklish moments. What a scene! Germans in clean uniforms coming out of their dugouts blinking in surprise at their undoing and in disgust, resentment and suppressed rage! Canadians, dust-covered from shell-bursts, eyes flashing, laughing, rushing about on the job in the midst of ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... gwineter tell you 'bout; sez Brer Possum, sezee. 'I want no mo' skeer'd dan you is right now, en' I wuz fixin' fer ter give Mr. Dog a sample er my jaw,' sezee, 'but I'm de most ticklish chap w'at you ever laid eyes on, en no sooner did Mr. Dog put his nose down yer 'mong my ribs dan I got ter laughin', en I laughed twel I ain't had no use er my lim's,' sezee, 'en it's a mussy unto Mr. Dog dat I wuz ticklish, kaze a little mo' en I'd e't 'im up,' sezee. 'I don't mine ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... to labour heavily, and my father climbed to the deck to observe the alteration in her trim. He dropped back and picked up his shovel again in a chastened silence. In fact, deputy-captain Priske (who had just accomplished the ticklish task of securing the rudder and lashing a couple of ropes to its broken head for steering-gear) had ordered him back to work, using ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... was strained anew. Presently Jack Drake, the Captain's page, yelled out Sail-ho! and scrambled down the mainmast to get the golden chain that Drake had promised to the first lookout who saw the chase. It was ticklish work, so near to Panama; and local winds might ruin all. So Drake, in order not to frighten her, trailed a dozen big empty wine jars over the stern to moderate his pace. At eight o'clock the jars were cut adrift and ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... be harder; but salmon are worth some trouble; so I left my rod and started back to camp for the stout rope that lay coiled in the bow of my canoe. It was late afternoon and I was hurrying along the path, giving chief heed to my feet in the ticklish walking, with the cliff above and the river below, when a loud Hoowuff! brought me up with a shock. There at a turn in the path, not ten yards ahead, stood a huge bear, calling unmistakable halt, and blocking me in as completely as if the mountain ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... hole in the wall on the windward side, where we stand all dumb with disappointment and dread until we are called down to dinner. But before going down Don Sanchez warns us to stand on our best behaviour, as these Spaniards, for all their rude seeming, were of a particularly punctilious, ticklish disposition, and that we might come badly out of this business if we ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... pragmatist could have told him the particular go of it. I believe that our contemporary pragmatists, especially Messrs. Schiller and Dewey, have given the only tenable account of this subject. It is a very ticklish subject, sending subtle rootlets into all kinds of crannies, and hard to treat in the sketchy way that alone befits a public lecture. But the Schiller-Dewey view of truth has been so ferociously attacked by rationalistic philosophers, and so abominably ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... to Wieland, "Life is a ticklish business—I propose to spend my time looking at it." This he did, viewing existence from every angle, and writing out his thoughts in ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... see—oh, yes, I see!" said Mr. Sherwin, rattling a bunch of keys in his pocket, with an expression of considerable perplexity; "but this is a ticklish business, you know—a very queer and ticklish business indeed. To have a gentleman of your birth and breeding for a son-in-law, is of course—but then there is the money question. Suppose you failed with your father after all—my money is out in my speculations—I can do nothing. ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... got the better of his master in more ways than one, he made the most of the advantage by playfully worrying him as he kept him down, licking his face in spite of his struggles, burrowing in his neck with a ticklish nose, snapping at his buttons, and yelping joyfully, as if it was the best joke in the world to play hide-and-seek for ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... "We're in a ticklish position here, lieutenant," he said. "We're in danger of being shot down by our own guns. At the same time, if we move from behind this station, we are not in sufficient strength to ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... that, and it will be a ticklish job. Tandy is as wily as any old fox. You're sure ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... Takauti mentioned her own name. Instantly Nan Tok' held up two fingers, his friend did likewise, both in an ecstasy of slyness. It was plain the lady had two names; and from the nature of their merriment, and the wrath that gathered on her brow, there must be something ticklish in the second. The husband pronounced it; a well-directed cocoa-nut from the hand of his wife caught him on the side of the head, and the voices and the mirth of these indiscreet young gentlemen ceased ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is like so many others on the coast, merely a "tickle" with three ticklish entrances full of sunken rocks and treacherous currents. The small islands that make the harbor are simply bare ledges, very rough and irregular in outline. The fishing village, also, like all others, consists of little earthen-covered ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley
... to a period nearer to ourselves, and look at those gentlemen who have in the last six years filled the office of Minister for Ireland, we find that no fewer than three (George Otto Trevelyan, John Morley, and Arthur Balfour) were authors of books before they engaged in the very ticklish business of the government of men. And one of these three Ministers for Ireland embarked upon his literary career—which promised ample distinction—under the editorial auspices of another of the three. We possess in one branch of the Legislature the author of the most fascinating literary ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... during this conversation had sat with his elbows resting on his knees and his eyes fastened upon the floor, "things is getting sorter ticklish down here in this neck of the woods already. Nobody don't know who ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... out strongly and slowly, with Austin crouching on his shoulders. They arrived in safety at the point aimed at, and managed to tear away a grand cluster of the great, beautiful yellow flowers; but the process was a very ticklish one, and the struggle resulted, not unnaturally, in Austin becoming dislodged from his not very secure position, and floundering head foremost into the depths. Lubin caught him as he rose again, and, taking him firmly by one hand, helped him to swim alongside of him ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... fractures set under an anaesthetic. One man had his arm blown to pieces on Monday afternoon, had it amputated on Monday night, and was put into one of our wards on Tuesday, and admitted to Base Hospital on Wednesday. But that is ticklish work. ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... the question was becoming ticklish, led him aside and explained things so satisfactorily to him that he soon drove off, recommending that watch should be kept, and that the colonists should not ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... I dodged the ticklish subject as best I could, told her that Frances' father was an Englishman, her mother an American, and that most of the young lady's life had been spent in France. I feared more searching questions, but she ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... that ships were improperly built—some were ten times longer than their beam. There was nothing in the world so ticklish as a ship; touch her in the waist, and down she goes. He believed sailing ships ought not to exceed four times their beam, and steamers certainly not more than six times. He pointed out that a fruitful cause of accidents was the stopping ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885 • Various
... imprints a kiss, in passing, on the back of your neck, let him. When, on coming home from a ball, he tears out the pins, tangles the strings, and laughs like a madman, trying to see whether you are ticklish, let him. Do not cry "Murder!" if his moustache pricks you, but think that it is all because at heart he loves you well. He worships your virtues; is it surprising hence that he should cherish their outward coverings? ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... pass?' laughed they: 'Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored, Shall the Formidable here with her twelve and eighty guns Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way, Trust to enter where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons, And with flow at full beside? Now, 'tis slackest ebb of tide. Reach the mooring? Rather say, While rock stands or water runs, Not a ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... breakfast this morning wearing only half a moustache. He said a goat had browsed off the other half while he slept. The poor beast has been having fits of giggles ever since—a moustache must be very ticklish ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... of the Murray they could now make use of their sail, which the contracted space in the bed of the Murrumbidgee had before prevented them from doing. The aborigines were seen nearly every day, and once when the voyagers had to negotiate a very ticklish rapid, some of them approached quite close, and seemed to take great interest ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... Vecchio for centuries, although, long since, it was an art of far higher pretensions than now. Benvenuto Cellini had his workshop here, probably in one of these selfsame little nooks. It would have been a ticklish affair to be Benvenuto's fellow-workman within such ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... every reason to be grateful. If I understand Colonel REAY rightly he doesn't wish bouquets to be thrown at the Specials, but he would not, I think, discourage me from saying that they performed dangerous and ticklish work with unfailing resource and tact. All of us know that they desire no other reward for their services than the satisfaction of having done their duty; but our gratitude demands to be heard; and I for one take ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... rounded pebbles and boulders, and beyond them the glacier. Once a giant, it is nothing but a baby now, but the ice is still blue and clear, and the crevasses many and deep. And that day it had to be crossed, which was a ticklish task. A misstep or slip might land us at once fairly into the heart of the glacier, there to be preserved in cold storage for the wonderment of future generations. But glaciers were Muir's special pets, his intimate companions, with whom he held sweet communion. Their voices were plain ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... solicitude. Also, for some reason which I could not divine, he seemed to be growing nervous; and, indeed, the whole party was evincing signs of confusion, and exchanging glances with one another. Probably they were thinking that it would be a ticklish—even an embarrassing—business to accompany the Grandmother to the Casino, where, very likely, she would perpetrate further eccentricities, and in public too! Yet on their own initiative they had offered to ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... paddle on the bottom on the other side of the bidarka, and, steadying himself by this means, slipped into place in the front hatch of the boat, just as one would step into a tottery birch-bark, although not even the latter can be more ticklish than one of these skin-covered native boats. Skookie was less particular, but, with the confidence born of long experience, took a running jump as he pushed off the bidarka and scrambled into the rear hatch. An instant later his own paddle was in motion, and Jesse and he made good ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... considerably smothered by his coon-skin cap rammed down over his mouth, and by his two shirts turned up over his head. With a swing of his huge limbs that made the knitted panels shake and rattle, Burl had flung himself over the fence, and was now engaged in the ticklish task of extricating his little master from amongst the vines and briers, the latter being just sufficiently thick to spice the disaster. When he had succeeded in fishing him out, pulled down the shirts, and pushed up the cap, he began vigorously rubbing the bare young legs with the ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... face for the driver in Sam Weller's anecdote, who upset the election party at the required point. Wonderful tales are current of his readiness and skill. One in particular, of how one of his horses fell at a ticklish passage of the road, and how Foss let slip the reins, and, driving over the fallen animal, arrived at the next stage with only three. This I relate as ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... reflex actions which by natural selection have been developed for the purpose of self-protection. Adequate stimulation of the nociceptors for pain is not the only means by which a discharge of nervous energy is caused. Nervous energy may be discharged also by adequate stimulation of the various ticklish regions of the body; the entire skin surface of the body contains delicate ticklish receptors. These receptors are closely related to the nociceptors for pain, and their adequate stimulation by an insect-like touch causes a discharge of energy,—a ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile
... this ticklish excursion into his sacred emotions, he jumped to his feet and went out to meet the man who was riding slowly toward them, the two others in his train. Burroughs went with him, and a ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... veritable discoverers. It was pretty to see with what discretion we approached and circled round it, searching for the most favorable point of attack. So much of an iceberg is beneath the surface of the water, ballasting the whole, that it is rather ticklish business cruising in its vicinity. We lay off and on, coquetting with the little beauty, while one of our boats pulled up to it, and threw a lariat over a glittering peak that flamed in the sun like a torch. Then we drew in the slack and made fast, while a half dozen of our men ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... This "ticklish" person is not better equipped than his neighbor, but more poorly equipped. True adjustment to the environment requires the faculty of putting out from consciousness all stimuli that do not require conscious attention. The nervous person is lacking in this faculty, ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... five fathoms deep below. The only safe ballast upon it is gold dust; and if stress of weather come on you, it will swallow you without remorse. Trevenna had none of this ballast; he had come out to sea in as ticklish a cockle-shell as might be; he might go down any moment, and he carried no commission, being a sort of nameless, unchartered rover: yet float ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... have another dose of it before you're entirely finished!" he responded. "When the case comes on in London. That's the ticklish part of the business. We'll meet there again, I expect, as Mr. Lake and I will be bound to give our evidence—which is a thankless task at the best of times.... Hello! Dollops, got the golf-clubs and walking-sticks? That's ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... rather ticklish, as you know, and the boy is young! He has not as yet, through proper training, had time to learn all the arts by which one gains one's wishes. Now, I ask nothing more of life, for I know what it gives; therefore he shall have my ...
— Lucky Pehr • August Strindberg
... knowledge is power, and the ignorant man is but an infant, and to give him knowledge is like putting a loaded blunderbuss into the hands of a child. What can an ignorant man do with knowledge? He is as likely to use it wrong end uppermost as in any other manner. Learning is a ticklish thing; it was said by Festus to have maddened even the wise and experienced Paul and what may we not expect it to do with your downright ignoramus? What ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... through calculation, but still more through an instinctive demand for what is real, as a practical man and statesman, always keeping in mind, like the great Catherine, "that he is operating, not on paper, but on the human hide, which is ticklish." Every idea entertained by him had its origin in his personal observation, and he used his own ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... such unconscious archness, and careless raillery, as if he gained new self-possession and adroitness from the perplexity and confusion into which he throws scrupulous imaginations, and knew how to seize on all the ticklish parts of his subject, from their involuntarily shrinking under his grasp. Some of his imitations of Boileau's servile addresses to Louis XIV. which he has applied with a happy mixture of wit and patriotic enthusiasm to King William, or as he ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... stop the uproar aloft, and create a little order amidst the chaos that there reigned, which was a much harder and far more ticklish task, it being perilous in the extreme, and almost useless, for any of the hands to venture up the rigging; for the wind was blowing with such terrific force that they could not have possibly lain out on the yards, even if they succeeded ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... for the Earl to recover consciousness in order to obtain instructions concerning the attitude to be adopted towards Austria, regarding whom a ticklish point of policy had on the previous evening arisen. The political horizon of Europe changes from hour ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... having a doubtful moment right now; not one, but dozens! I'm on the most ticklish errand of my life. That's what I called on Judge Trent about the ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... wuz gwineter tell you 'bout; sez Brer Possum, sezee. 'I want no mo' skeer'd dan you is right now, en' I wuz fixin' fer ter give Mr. Dog a sample er my jaw,' sezee, 'but I'm de most ticklish chap w'at you ever laid eyes on, en no sooner did Mr. Dog put his nose down yer 'mong my ribs dan I got ter laughin', en I laughed twel I ain't had no use er my lim's,' sezee, 'en it's a mussy unto Mr. Dog ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... the field of personal adventure in Central Asia has happened for many a year than my entrance into Furrah on a bicycle. Only those who know Afghanistan and the Afghans can fully realize the ticklish character of this little piece ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... bridge, and at that time? Come, now—theer's a tickler for somebody!" And even as he smiled at the remembrance of the whole rustic conversation of the previous evening, and thought that the blacksmith's question certainly might be a ticklish one—for somebody—he looked up from the frosted grass at his ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... years filled the office of Minister for Ireland, we find that no fewer than three [George Otto Trevelyan, John Morley, and Arthur Balfour] were authors of books before they engaged in the very ticklish business of the government of men. ["Hear! Hear!"] And one of these three Ministers for Ireland embarked upon his literary career—which promised ample distinction—under the editorial auspices of another of the three. We possess in one branch of the Legislature the author of the most fascinating ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... places that it was nothing more than a shelf blasted from the sheer face of the cliff. Twice, meeting motor-lorries downward bound, we had to back along that narrow shelf, with our outer wheels on the brink of emptiness, until we came to a spot where there was room to pass. It was a ticklish business. ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... Scottish nation."[140] The Scotch Estates, therefore, had absolutely regarded the possible separation of the two kingdoms as a contingency which might become not undesirable; and, though it was too ticklish an argument to bring forward, it may very possibly have occurred to Pitt that a similar vote of the Irish Parliament was not impossible. The claim which Grattan, following Fox, had set up on behalf of the Prince of Wales, was one of an indefeasible right to the Regency; and, ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... anything to a woman; all depends on the way in which it is said. I have seen lady doctors with whom one could discuss the most ticklish subjects, profoundly shocked by the misplaced pleasantries of a tactless professor. In themselves these pleasantries were quite innocent for medical ears, as my lady colleagues were finally obliged to admit, when I pointed out to them the specially feminine character of their psychic ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... of the play Socrates expressly declares that no gods exist. Similar statements are repeated in several places. Zeus is sometimes substituted for the gods, but it comes to the same thing. And at the end of the play, where the honest Athenian, who has ventured on the ticklish ground of sophistic, admits his delusion, ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... rather shortly. "I'm sorry too! But what are you going to do about it? If you can't go, you can't. And you know it's absolutely out of the question." As a fact he was glad that her condition made such an excursion impossible for her. She would certainly have been rather a ticklish handful for him at ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... put on airs with me, then," she said mutinously. "Now, what ailed them all? It couldn't have been the advent of the Mayos. I've launched more ticklish craft than they. Nor could it have been that abominable Brian Beck, who would spoil Paradise and be the utter ruin of a respectable funeral. Every one seemed to conspire to make my dinner ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... broken necks also were an easy possibility by the chance of a slip upon the mossy edge of one or another of the many ledges, followed by a spin through the air ending suddenly upon the jagged rocks below. Indeed, so ticklish did I find my way that I began to think that the Indians had spoken no more than the simple truth in warning me against such dangers, and that I had better turn again while light remained to bring me back in safety; and ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... they grew tired of this, and began to jump upon ticklish points of ice; and as these began to crack and show signs of breaking away, the boys would run, with wild whoops, back to shore, the very danger seeming to add to their enjoyment. Then, with poles and "prys," they would work upon the cracking mass until ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... order, for the current of old Missouri, thrusting against so large an object, was incredibly strong; but at last, little by little edging the heavy staging up over the limb of the snag, we got its end upon another fork and so made a ticklish support, half in and half ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... able to, at that," said Stone. "You're pretty slight. But it would be a ticklish proposition without any rope from above. Well, ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... plate into the lake——you got to fish that out, come day, David——fooled you into that trip to Doc Carey to get him to mail them to Ruth, and never turned a hair. But after I got home I commenced thinkin' 'twas a pretty ticklish job to stick your nose into other people's business, an' every hour it got worse, until I ain't had a fairly decent sleep since. If you hadn't come soon, boy, I'd 'a' been sick a-bed. Oh, David! Are you sure she's over there, and loves you to ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... visitors. They fell out of the way of always expecting her to be the one to run on errands, even for the children. "Don't bother your Aunt Mehetabel," Sophia would call. "Can't you see she's got to a ticklish place on ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... as philosophical, only a little madder. After all, Love's sectaries are a reason unto themselves. We have gone retrograde to the noble heresy, since the days when Sidney proselyted our nation to this mixed health and disease: the kindliest symptom, yet the most alarming crisis, in the ticklish state of youth; the nourisher and the destroyer of hopeful wits; the mother of twin births, wisdom and folly, valor and weakness; the servitude above freedom; the gentle mind's ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... either be useless, or precipitate the burning of other records. I hope your excursion will do you good. Thank you for your account of Spedding: I had written however to himself, and from himself ascertained that he was out of the worst. But Spedding's life is a very ticklish one. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... impossible to be ever quite alone. Not so very long ago in Merrie England if a person muttered to himself it was enough on which to establish a charge of wizardry; but it is also said that real witches and wizards, though subject to the most ticklish tests, never perspired—a default which hastened conviction. Therein is my hope of salvation. If it be my fate some day ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... some concern in the German trenches just over the way with regard to what was taking place in our lines. Relief periods are ticklish intervals for the side making them. It is quite possible that some intimation of our presence ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... financial arrangements which Julian insisted on making for her. He was not a rich man, and she the better economist of the two. We knew she saw that in popular esteem Julian would pay the price of her pride if she refused, and that in this ticklish moment of his life the least she could do was to let him have the full ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... none the worse for it," Tom Spade told him later; "he had a drop too much, to be sure, but his legs were as steady as mine, an' he slept it off in an hour. He's a ticklish chap, Mr. Christopher," the storekeeper added after a moment, "an' I'd keep my hands from meddlin' with him, if I was you. That thing shan't happen agin at my place, an' it wouldn't have happened then if I'd been around ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... to be offered for a mother that will hazard the happiness of her children by a second marriage. The law allows it, to be sure; but there is, as Prior says, 'something beyond the letter of the law.' I know what ticklish ground I am treading on here; but, though it is as lawful for a woman to take a second husband as for a man to take a second wife, the cases are different, and widely different, in the eye of ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... and—in a word—the—best. Without any hesitation, I maintain that it is the Asphalte. And I do not speak without experience. For many years I have picked mine up from the box-seat of a hearse, which I think my most virulent opponents will admit, from the ticklish character of its cattle, accustomed as they are to a stiff, formal and lugubrious method of progression, affords a test that must be regarded as supreme by all candid and unprejudiced inquirers into ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, January 18, 1890 • Various
... cat, which I now saw was an enormous panther, I waited until I could place a shot where I felt it would do the most good, for at best a frontal shot at any of the large carnivora is a ticklish matter. I had some advantage in that the beast was not charging; its head was held low and its back exposed; and so at forty yards I took careful aim at its spine at the junction of neck and shoulders. But at the same instant, as though sensing my intention, the great creature ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... folk for many miles round. If a child was scalded, a tooth ached, a piece of silver was stolen, a heifer shrew-struck, a pig bewitched, a young damsel crost in love, Lucy was called in, and Lucy found a remedy, especially for the latter complaint. Now and then she found herself on ticklish ground, for the kind-heartedness which compelled her to help all distressed damsels out of a scrape, sometimes compelled her also to help them into one; whereon enraged fathers called Lucy ugly names, and threatened to send her into Exeter ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... What would'st thou say? Speak, fret me not With ticklish fears. Is she not by my side, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... water was in sight to the north and north-west the next morning, after a restless night spent among the rocking floes. But progress was very slow. The 'Aurora' went to leeward under the influence of a west-south- west breeze, and steering by means of the yards and a warp-anchor was a ticklish business. The ship came to a full stop among heavy floes before noon on the 3rd, and three hours later, after vain attempts to warp ahead by means of ice-anchors, Stenhouse had the fires partially drawn (to save coal) ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... to two hundred pounds of Shimose explosive, and they are arranged to automatically adjust themselves to varying depths of water. The ship which strikes one of them will be done for! Having told you so much, you will readily understand that they are ticklish affairs to handle, particularly when it comes to laying them; hence my choice of you, Captain Swinburne, to supervise and execute the task. I shall be glad if you will go aboard, at your earliest convenience, ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... a joke, with rather a bitter cream! It seems as if I'd woke from a mighty ticklish dream; And I think she "smells a rat," for she smiles at me so queer; I hope she don't; good Lord! I ...
— Farm Ballads • Will Carleton
... contrary to my most constant maxim; and besides, I did not recollect that, in bestowing praise and strongly censuring in the same article, without naming the persons, the language must be so appropriated to those to whom it is applicable, that the most ticklish pride cannot find in it the least thing equivocal. I was in this respect in such an imprudent security, that I never once thought it was possible any one should make a false application. It will soon appear whether or ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... you know me? I've heard of the Phelpses ever since I was knee-high to a duck. They are folks nobody need feel ticklish about shaking hands with. You're the only swelled up one of the stock. I never knowed but one wuthless Phelp, and he was a good enough fisher when he was sober. Colonel, were you ever picked up by puttin' out your paw to the wrong man? Want to ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... that," announced Jed Sanborn, after a close examination. "Two on 'em—-most likely mates. It will be a ticklish job trying to ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill
... one time was Rector of St. Clement's, Oxford, and later became Dean of Norwich. He wrote a Life of Mahomet, and also a work in which he attempted to bridge over the interval between the Old and New Testaments—rather a ticklish job, one might imagine. There are a good many excellent pictures at the house—a Vandyck and many Opies; but the visitor, unless specially introduced, will have to be content with the outside ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... o' you, then," said Bridget, about to suit the action to the word. "Ow! ow!" cried Andy, "don't touch me—I'm ticklish." ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... physique I should mention that all my reflexes are very brisk, though I am only slightly ticklish in the ordinary sense of the term. I sweat easily and am very shy, not only with women, but with any strangers. I have, however, trained myself not to show this. About averagely passionate, I should say, and extremely critical where women are concerned, the latter quality often keeping ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... "A perplexing and ticklish possession is a daughter," according to Menander or some old Greek poet, and to nobody was one ever more so than to Melbury, by reason of her very dearness to him. As for Grace, she began to feel troubled; she did not perhaps wish there and then to unambitiously devote ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... at Bermuda during the war of 1814; they went through the waves without rising to them, and consequently were too ticklish for northern stations. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... stand still, and we would shoot the bear; but he cried out earnestly, "O pray! O pray! no shoot, me shoot by and then;" he would have said by and by. However, to shorten the story, Friday danced so much, and the bear stood so ticklish, that we had laughing enough indeed, but still could not imagine what the fellow would do; for first we thought he depended upon shaking the bear off; and we found the bear was too cunning for that too; ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... explained. Most of the river fell perpendicularly ten or twelve feet; but near its centre the force of the current had so far worn away the rock as to permit the water to shoot through a narrow passage, at an angle of about forty or forty five degrees. Down this ticklish descent the canoe had glanced, amid fragments of broken rock, whirlpools, foam, and furious tossings of the element, which an uninstructed eye would believe menaced inevitable destruction to an object ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... woods on the right side of a clear field where a portion of the afternoon battle had raged, and lay down by the side of the road, conscious that we were in a ticklish place. There was occasional firing over us into the field, and once in a while a bullet dropped near us. But this soon ceased and the battlefield, as a whole, was quiet, and I began to hope that the battle was over. But our colonel was ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... curiosity at both rider and wheel, and the moral certainty of a foreigner unwittingly doing something to offend the Chinamen's peculiar and deep-rooted notions of propriety. This, it is easily seen, would be a peculiarly ticklish thing to do when surrounded by surging masses of dangling pig-tails and cerulean blouses, the wearers of which are from the start predisposed to make things as unpleasant as possible. My own experience alone, however, will prove the kind of reception I am likely to meet with among them; ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... there was a chilling silence: everybody felt she was getting on ticklish ground now. She knew that well enough herself. But she had a good rudder to steer ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... and sleeping in the same room with her. I recollect both going into the bed room together, it was next to mine. It was evening, we had sweet wine, cake, and snap-dragon, and played at something, at which all sat in a circle on the floor. I was very ticklish, it nearly sent me into fits, we tickled each other on the floor. There was much fun, and noise, the governess tickled me, and I tickled her. She said as I was taken to bed, or rather went, as I then did by myself, ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... since I opened this book. But it cannot be, it cannot be that we shall be beaten—Oh! God—why am I not a man again to fight! The raids are continuous—All the fluffies and nearly everyone left Paris in the ticklish March and April times, but now their fears are lulled a little and many have returned, and they rush to cinemas and theatres, to kill time, and jump into the rare taxis to go and see the places where the raid ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... with the Duke of Wellington, to look after business. It would not do for either of us to be gadding, while Ireland, and Turkey, and Portugal want watching. The times are getting ticklish. The stocks are rising most dreadfully, as the barometer falls; and the Squirearchy are beginning to dread that the patridges will be drowned. That will be a sad drawback from the delights of a two-shilling quartern-loaf. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... their honeymoon, you know: which enormously intensified the poignancy of the drama. They had been married only six days; in three days more they were to return to the Five Towns, where Stephen was solidly established as an earthenware manufacturer. You who have been through them are aware what ticklish things honeymoons are, and how much depends on the tactfulness of the more tactful of the two parties. Stephen, thirteen years older than Vera, was the more tactful of the two parties. He had married a beautiful and elegant woman, with vast unexploited capacities for love in her heart. But he had ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... himself the best part of his speech,— the conclusion. He thereupon protested that the best part of a speech was persuasion, and that he who did not aim at persuasion should make no speech; for, as to conviction, that was a ticklish business. As, however, they gave him no peace, he began a Capuchinade on the spot, more comical than ever, perhaps, for the very reason that he took it into his head to speak on the most serious subjects. For with texts out of the ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... enough, if Miss Rosalie would give us the loan of a little white paint or chalk," observed O'Grady; "but, faith, the rest of the business is rather ticklish, though there's nothing like trying, and we shall have some fun for our ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... Robert give him any? Would Amy, Louise, or Imogene? Would they sell him any? Would the other members of the family care to do anything which would infringe on Robert's prerogatives under the will? They were all rather unfriendly to Lester at present, and he realized that he was facing a ticklish situation. The solution was—to get rid of Jennie. If he did that he would not need to be begging for stock. If he didn't, he was flying in the face of his father's last will and testament. He turned the matter ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... quickly, as to give, in a slight degree, an air of distrust to his manner. "But the eye that has often seen battles seldom winks. Mine has too often, and too steadily, looked danger in the face to be alarmed at the sight of a King's pennant. Besides it is not usual for us to be much on this ticklish coast; the islands, and the Spanish Main, are ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... good earnest, were those compelled to resort who ventured upon the ticklish experiment of presenting heroic entertainments for king's palaces, where 'hanging was the word' in case of a fright; but, with a genius like this behind the scenes, so fertile in invention, so various in gifts, who could aggravate his voice so effectually, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... "Kittle [ticklish, delicate] ground, Sissot, for man to take on him to account for the doings of woman. I might win a clap to mine ears, ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... mid-forenoon, Hooley was satisfied that everything was ready to shoot the picture. One of the foremen of Benbow Camp—the best ax wielder of the crew—ran out on the boom to a point near the middle of the frothing stream and began cutting the key-log. It was a ticklish piece of work; but these timbermen were used ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... acrid common-sense, whose eye magnified the canker till it effaced the rose, began as what would now be called a romantic poet. With no mastery of verse, for even the English heroic (a balancing-pole which has enabled so many feebler men to walk the ticklish rope of momentary success) was uneasy to him, he essayed the Cowleian Pindarique, as the adjective was then rightly spelled with a hint of Parisian rather than Theban origin. If the master was but a fresh example of the disasters that wait upon every new trial of the flying-machine, ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... robbed—burst into laughter. But this was the end. There was Allister's whistle; Jeff Rankin ran around from the other side of the train; the gang faded instantly into the thicket. Andrew, as the rear guard—his most ticklish moment—backed slowly toward the trees. Once there was a waver in the line, such as precedes a rush. He stopped short, and a single twitch of his rifle froze ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... Ba'tiste, contorted with merriment, pointed vaguely in the direction of the bed, "M'sieu l' Nobody, heem is ticklish!" ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... will be prying, of his own accord, into things of such ticklish and troublesome, not to say perilous nature—I've nothing to say ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 22, 1893 • Various
... "My position is a ticklish one, so to speak," he observed, vainly trying to dodge the palm leaves to the right of him; "but I think we ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... in advance. She didn't try to trap me into an acquaintance, but sent me word that she wanted advice. There's a woman who knows what she wants, and goes for it with a clear head. But what can I do for her? She'll be wanting to give a tea or a ball before she has acquaintances enough. It's awfully ticklish making such people understand that they must go slow and take what they ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... disasters. It was here that a certain saint first landed on his voyage out of Ireland to convert the Hebrideans. And, indeed, I think he had some claim to be called saint; for, with the boats of that past age, to make so rough a passage, and land on such a ticklish coast, was surely not far short of the miraculous. It was to him, or to some of his monkish underlings who had a cell there, that the islet owes its holy and beautiful ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... gallows told them they must not take him through such a street, lest a merchant who lived there should arrest him by the way for an old debt. Another told the hangman he must not touch his neck for fear of making him laugh, he was so ticklish. Another answered his confessor, who promised him he should that day sup with our Lord, "Do you go then," said he, "in my room [place]; for I for my part keep fast to-day." Another having called for drink, and the hangman having drunk first, said he would not drink after him, for ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... presume you will be going almost immediately to London—at least all our Scotch members are requested to be at their posts, the meaning of which I cannot pretend to guess. The finances are the only ticklish matter, but there is, after all, plenty of money in the country, now that our fever-fit is a little over. In Britain, when there is the least damp upon the spirits of the public, they are exactly like people ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... No, child," he chuckled. "But the woods don't breed many runts, that's a fact. There's some bigger than I. Long Sam Dorgan is near seven feet he isn't quite sure, for he's so ticklish that you can't ever measure him," and Uncle Henry's chuckle burst into a full-fledged laugh. "He's just as graceful as a length of shingle lathing, too. And freckles and liver spots on his hands and face, well, he certain sure is ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... spoken—told his whole story, as he says—he is rather glad than otherwise to be relieved from the common curiosity of strangers. He's a rare bird, Gryce. If he stops to think, he must see that he stands in a more or less ticklish position. But he does not betray by look or action any doubt of our entire belief in the truth of all his statements. His only trouble seems to be that he has lost, by these inhuman means, the girl upon whom he had set his heart. To-morrow ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... said, 'You don't like the idea of a merchant-brother; but you'll have to get used to it. I don't mean to let him go back to college. He knows a lot of useful stuff, and these are ticklish times.' ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... it at present; at first he had only one, now, of course, he has a few more; when he has got enough he will hybridise. You don't know what that is. Cross-breed with it; use the blue with the old yellow daffodil as parents to new varieties. That's ticklish work; growers can't afford to do it till they have a fair number of the new sort; but, of course, they occasionally get something ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... Holmes left me. "I've got to finish this job," said he. "The most ticklish part of the business is ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... It was a ticklish enterprise. As is frequently the case upon these occasions, nervous tension manifested itself much more seriously at Headquarters than in the front-line trenches. The man on the spot is, as a rule, much too busy with the actual execution of the enterprise ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... dangerous scouts in enemy country this turned out to be the most ticklish. For young Lieutenant Beale, the tenderfoot, it was hair-raising. Captain Pico had known that the celebrated Kit Carson was with the Americans upon the hill, and feared him. He had placed three lines of mounted patrols around the base of the hill, and instructed ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... executing under trying circumstances, and all of them knew their duty. If any one trembled as the mast swayed over when the ship rolled, he was afraid to mention the fact, or to exhibit any signs of alarm. Perhaps most of them would have been willing to acknowledge that it was rather "ticklish" business to lay out on a topsail yard at midnight in a gale of wind; and if their anxious mothers could have seen the boys at that moment, some of them might have fainted, and all wished them ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... best things lately said upon age—a very ticklish subject by the way—was the observation of Mr. James Smith to Mr. Thomas Hill. "Hill," said the former gentleman, "you take an unfair advantage of an accident: the register of your birth was burnt in the great fire of London, and you avail yourself of the ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... breath that he was very glad to see us, and that he had played cricket for thirty years, boy and man. His name was Plumb, and I liked him very much; he played in both braces and a belt, because he told us belts were ticklish things and braces sometimes burst. I answered that it was always well to be on the safe side, and we had quite a confidential talk, until Lambert and Dennison came up and interrupted us. Lambert began to complain about the long grass, ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... urged her father to go through the lad's life with a fine tooth comb, and if he should find anything there to kick up no end of a row for the honor of the family. All of which was nothing but words, reflected Roger pettishly. It all came to this, that he had a most ticklish evening ahead! On the path as a rider greeted him, his reply was ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... said Lydgate, half dubiously. "It is difficult to decide as to the possible effect of long-standing complications; but the man had a robust constitution to begin with. I should not expect this attack to be fatal, though of course the system is in a ticklish state. He should be well watched ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... must be struck soon—at once. It is too ticklish a matter to admit of delay, either in the ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... busy in finishing a piece of work, "it is a little ticklish to stroke this into order but it isn't hard, if you have the right materials, and ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... and Dr. Barren were still fussing with the machine he despatched me on the rather ticklish errand of gathering together all those who had been at the Novella at the time and might possibly ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... frequently threw our runners completely into the air, and the wrench was so great that it was a miracle how the sled escaped fracture. All the joints, it is true, began to work apart, and the ash shafts bent in the most ticklish way; but the rough little conveyance which had already done us such hard service held out gallantly to the end. We reached Mo Myskie on the second night after leaving Sundsvall, and I was greeted with "Salaam aleikoom, ya Sidi!" from the jolly old Tripolitan landlord. There was an unusual ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... Rome is intensely interesting. The streets are mostly narrow and crooked, and we are always turning corners, driving across small triangular open places and in lanes where it is ticklish work to pass a vehicle coming in the opposite direction. Yet no boulevards, no great streets in the world, can rival in beauty the streets of Rome. They are skirted by old grey palaces built thousands of years ago rather than centuries, decorated with the most splendid window frames, ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... next fish. Getting back would be harder; but salmon are worth some trouble; so I left my rod and started back to camp for the stout rope that lay coiled in the bow of my canoe. It was late afternoon and I was hurrying along the path, giving chief heed to my feet in the ticklish walking, with the cliff above and the river below, when a loud Hoowuff! brought me up with a shock. There at a turn in the path, not ten yards ahead, stood a huge bear, calling unmistakable halt, and blocking me in as completely as if the mountain had ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... real divorce or public separation; she kept her title of Queen and her position as lawful wife. The rest, it appears, was of no great interest to her. It only remained to conclude the marriage, but, under the circumstances, that was a delicate and ticklish business. ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... accidentall Declarings of Fates intelligence; and that by the other Processes, embracing The Sacrifice, there remain for Reading just the Cards decreed; free from disposition by light-fingered Craft, or from ticklish Arrangements by Skill. ...
— The Square of Sevens - An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note • E. Irenaeus Stevenson
... me as though this is going to be a rather ticklish affair," Droom resumed after the boy had closed the outer door behind him. Bansemer's mind was on Mrs. Cable's note; a queer smile hung ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... in the garden with Sir W. Warren, talking of many things belonging to us particularly, and I hope to get something considerably by him before the year be over. He gives me good advice of circumspection in my place, which I am now in great mind to improve; for I think our office stands on very ticklish terms, the Parliament likely to sit shortly and likely to be asked more money, and we able to give a very bad account of the expence of what we have done with what they did give before. Besides, the turning out the prize officers may be an example for the King giving us ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... on eating and drinking with Pao-ch'ai, Hsiang-yuen and the other girls, P'ing Erh turned her head round. "Don't rub me like that!" she laughed, "It makes me feel quite ticklish." ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... minister was explaining the splendors of the other world, and declaring that there all who in this world had loved each other would be reunited, the girl put this question to him—"Would those meet who had loved each other, or only those whom the minister had united?" This was a ticklish question; but the reverend gentleman answered, from his own puritanical point of view, that only those could possibly love each other who were united by the church, and that it was of course impossible for those who were thus united not to love each other. ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... the point of getting a job in the Secret Service—Intelligence Department. I had the whole thing cut and dried—to get at the ramifications of German espionage in socialistic and so-called intellectual circles in neutral and other countries. It would have been ticklish work, for I should have been carrying my life in my hands. I could have done it well. I started out by being a sort of 'intellectual' myself. All along I wanted to put my brains at the service of my country. I took some time to hit upon ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... rulers had a very ticklish part to play. They were afraid of any popular shout which might bring down the avalanche of Roman power on them, and they were nervously anxious to keep things quiet. So Gamaliel did not wish to have any fuss made about 'these men,' lest it should be supposed that another ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... train to stop. But she didn't stop. She didn't have to. For the first, last, and only time on The Road, I got all I wanted. I abandoned the bumpers and managed to get out on a side-ladder; it was ticklish work, for I had never encountered car-ends that were so parsimonious of hand-holds and foot-holds as those ...
— The Road • Jack London
... answered Mildmay. "Of course I need not tell you that to interfere in a case of this kind, with no knowledge of the facts, is a somewhat ticklish business. But, all the same, that is not going to stop me. I see, yonder, a British ship flying from a stranger; and with your kind permission I am going to ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... down his eye for a moment. "Sir Isaac," at length he began, "we are relying very much upon you. Is there no suggestion which you can offer on this ticklish theme?" ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... with the Lacedaemonians, and determine to stone him. He undertakes to speak in defence of the Lacedaemonians, standing the while behind a block, as he is to lose his head if he does not succeed in convincing them. In this ticklish predicament, he calls on Euripides, to lend him the tattered garments in which that poet's heroes were in the habit of exciting commiseration. We must suppose the house of the tragic poet to occupy the middle ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... to me," said this last person, "that there is danger in numbers. Of course, that's your affair, Kauffman, and none of my business, but if I'm to help you pull it off, I'd rather there wouldn't be too many of us. It's a ticklish thing, at ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... and the Rev. W. Sharman (secretary of the Society for the Repeal of the Blasphemy Laws), had made speeches, which I should blush to transcribe, I rose to respond. It was a ticklish moment. But I found I had a voice still, and the words came readily enough. Concluding my address I said: "I thank you for your greeting. I am not played out. I am thinner. The doctor told me I had lost two stone, and I believe it. But ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... held me about th' neck with both arms, and like to ha' run me mad with kissing th' back o' my neck (for I was e'er one o' your ticklish sort). I stood it bravely, however, seeing how she loved me, and kissed her too whensoever I could get a chance for th' tightness o' her hugging. And so we settled it. But Mistress Lemon was yet to ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... Leimann, joyfully; "but it is a somewhat ticklish business, for some time or other there is bound to come a crash, and then if neither of us has a penny there will be the deuce ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... defending that part before fighting their way up to the second row. There they did the same, and here must have been the way up to the top part, which they tried to make stronger still. You see, it's rather a ticklish bit up the side there, and plenty of room all round for those who defended the place to use spears and stones to beat down those who came against them. Just look, it wouldn't only be driving them back, but knocking them off into a hole or trap where ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... rather strong, youngster. I didn't agree to pay till the scheme was carried out. But we've done better than we 'xpected, and, to take you out of danger, I offered to pay part down. In a business as ticklish as stocks, you don't expect a man to come down with the ready ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... almost as well as the dead, and forms good ash for baking dampers. Again to-day we had our usual shock of earthquake and at the usual time. Next day at three p.m., earthquake, quivering hills, broken and toppling rocks, with scared and agitated rock wallabies. This seemed a very ticklish, if not extremely dangerous place for a depot. Rocks overhung and frowned down upon us in every direction; a very few of these let loose by an earthquake would soon put a period to any further explorations on our part. We passed a great portion of to-day (18th) in ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... to pass?" laughed they: "Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored,— Shall the "Formidable" here, with her twelve and eighty guns, Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way, Trust to enter—where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons, And with flow at full beside? Now, 'tis slackest ebb of tide. Reach the mooring? Rather say, While rock stands or water runs, Not a ship ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... been very warm—Lavalliere suspecting the lady's games, told her that Maille loved her dearly, that she had in him a man of honour, a gentleman who doted on her, and was ticklish on ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... he had a ticklish matter to handle, he prepared for it, with his usual enthusiasm ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... "'Tis a ticklish business," said I after a minute, "to carry the King's letter. Not one in four of his messengers comes through, they say. But since it keeps you ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... guide is very vigilant. All troops are guided to their positions, and the man on this ticklish job is nearly always a sergeant. He has an eagle eye, and a feline sense of hearing. He will note your ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... were much astonished at finding the fiddler in bed beside them, and overwhelmed him with questions; but their friend hid his back and face, and answered them very shortly, saying, 'Go there yourselves, and see what's to be seen! It is a ticklish matter, that ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
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